Thursday, May 11, 2006

New appeal rule was designed to counter Bucknor

Oh alright...I wrote that headline in our 'mainstream media' style. What Dave Richardson said, in this report clarifying on Bucknor's claim of tv bias against umpires, is that Bucknor is a good example why technology has been a good tool in cricket

But Richardson told BBC World Service Sport: "I often point to him as a very good example of why we need to give technology a go.

"He's done particularly well this year. After not a great year last year, he's averaging around 96% of his decisions being correct, and yet he's made one or two decisions which have come in for terrible criticism from the media and from fans writing in to us.

Which essentially means that they have been made *aware* of some glaring errors which Bucknor made in recent times. Bravo!...the system works...write in to ICC, all you fans, even if there's a remote chance of them giving it a look.

As to that high percentage figures that Richardson keeps throwing up, showing how *good* the umpires already are...well, as with all statistics, they don't reveal the full picture. For example, out of the 96% right decisions made by Bucknor, how many were really tough ones? I bet the straightforward ones would be close to 90%. I'm guessing that includes the clean-bowled, the absolute plumb, the outfield catches, the clear caught behinds or close catches, and the runouts which were either clear or assisted by third ump. Anyone knows more on this?

It would be interesting to know what's Bucknor's (and some others') percentage for those close ones. But even this would not tell the full story. That missing 4% could contain a decision which changed the entire course of the match (the one against Lara on their last tour down under comes to mind). So getting 96% right is not really laudable, unless we dig deeper into the match details.